Technology for processing captured images has gradually become popular and widely used.
Hitherto, motion blur that arises when two different images are combined or when an image of a moving subject is captured is eliminated by separately combining the images after the images have been captured or by eliminating the motion blur.
In the latter case, that is, when the image of the moving subject is captured, there is a method for eliminating in real time motion blur that arises due to the motion. Specifically, for example, as shown in FIG. 1A, when an image of a subject swinging a golf club is captured, a displayed image includes a blurred golf club due to the motion of the golf club. The effect that arises when such a blurred image is displayed is the so-called motion blur.
In order to eliminate the motion blur in real time, as shown in FIG. 1B, one possible method uses a high-speed camera to capture an image. When an image is captured by the high-speed camera, the amount of luminance at the time the image is captured is insufficient (since one shutter period is short, the amount of light obtained is small, and hence, the luminance is insufficient). The subject needs to be irradiated with special intense light, or, as shown in FIG. 2, irradiated with a flash of intense light at the same time as the shutter is pressed, and an image of the subject needs to be captured by the high-speed camera.
In the foregoing method, the image synthesis processing cannot be performed in real time. In the synthesis processing, if there is no image needed for synthesis, an image must again be captured at the same place. There is a method for performing the motion-blur elimination processing in real time. For example, capturing an image of a wild animal at night for the purpose of ecological observation using the foregoing method may frighten the wild animal, which is the subject, since the foregoing method involves using intense lighting. As a result, the natural ecology may not be observed.